Nikolai Vladimirovich Ruzsky
Николай Владимирович Рузский
1854–1918
✕ Executed as a hostage by the Reds
The Northern Front commander who forced the Tsar's abdication at Pskov
Nicholas II is reported to have said in exile: 'God gives me the strength to forgive all my enemies and tormentors, but General-Adjutant Ruzsky I cannot forgive.'
An infantry general of Imperial Russia who earned the title 'Conqueror of Galicia,' he commanded the Third Army, the Northwestern Front, and the Northern Front during the First World War. As commander of the Northern Front headquartered at Pskov during the February Revolution, he received Nicholas II's train and pressed the Tsar to introduce a responsible ministry and then to abdicate, relaying the unanimous telegrams of Chief of Staff Alekseyev and the front commanders. After an hour and a half of argument, the moment the Tsar's will broke was the moment the military declared it would no longer defend the dynasty. Late in the Civil War he refused a Red Army command, calling it 'a war of Russians against Russians,' and stayed at the Caucasian mineral waters; in 1918 he was taken as a hostage and killed by the Cheka.
Career Timeline
- 1877–1878Fought in the Russo-Turkish War, wounded at the fortress of Gorni Dubnik
- 1881Graduated Nikolayev Academy of General Staff; staff posts in Kiev and Vilno districts
- 1904–1905Chief of Field Staff, 2nd Manchurian Army in the Russo-Japanese War
- 1909Promoted General of Infantry; Member of Military Council; co-author of the 1912 Field Regulations
- 1914.07–09Commander of the Third Army; took Lemberg in the Battle of Galicia
- 1914.09–1915.03Commander-in-Chief, Northwestern Front
- 1915.08–1917.04Commander-in-Chief, Northern Front; pressed Nicholas II to abdicate at Pskov, March 1917
- 1917.04Resigned over discipline disputes with the Provisional Government; moved to Caucasian Mineral Waters